My one regret from DD's birth is that we have no good pics of her as a nb. We have some home pics, but no good pictures.

With DS, we bought one from the hospital photographer (it was okay and we wanted to be SURE we had one). It was $20. Then when he was 3 days old and we didn't yet know that what was wrong with me was PP pre-e, we took him to Picture People and got some good ones. We spent about $80 more. Totally worth it. I'm looking up at some of those pictures now. They're making me smile.

I don't do the trendy unnatural poses though, so I had no need of finding a professional photographer and would never spend $400 or even $200 on nb photos.

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S, mama to K (9/07) and e (7/09) and married to my best friend, E

We did the trendy unnatural newborn pictures. The sitting fee was a baby shower gift from a dear friend (actually the midwife that caught him!) and the photog is another close friend. I love our first official family pictures and she did a beautiful job. Had it not been a gift I don't know what I would have done because it probably would have been out of our budget, but I've certainly never looked at the pictures on the wall and regretted buying the photos. What I wish I had (just for me) was a birth photographer and I absolutely regret that the friend that was there didn't get more pictures.

ETA I've also seen some lovely lifestyle photographers do newborn and family pictures that I loved. That may be more your style!

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Wife. Midwife. Mother. Not necessarily in that order depending on the day!

For that much... I would just get a really nice camera of your own. We have a Nikon d3100 and it takes amazing pictures. I have fantastic photos of my kids from every day life and posed pictures and all of them were taken with the camera on auto. When my husband talked about spending so much on a camera, I was annoyed and couldn't understand why... Quickly realized the quality difference.

I think newborn photos are totally worth it - to do yourself. You said you have a good DSLR, just pintrest search "newborn photos" for some pose ideas and take them yourself. Then use paint.net to touch them up and your gold. We did a mix of the unnatural poses and just shots of her cuddled up sleeping. Turns out the unnatural was our favorite! I am by NO MEANS good at taking pictures, but these turned out just fine.

I either take them at home --inspired by the expensive ones-- or do Portrait Innovations.

I have use the mall places--Target, Walmart, JCPenny and they were okay. I hated having to drive back and get them. We do not live close, they take hardly any pictures. PI takes over a 100 ever time.

I get good shots of all the kids, of the kids together for right around $100. We go every 3 months till a year (don't spend as much on these) and then twice a year after that. Once all the kids are in school I will probably drop to just once a year since they also get school pictures.

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wife and mom-- no other special labels. Just trying to do the best I can.

I completely agree that $400 is a big chunk of change for photos. Unfortunately, it seems to be the going rate in my area and there isn't much competition. If it were $200 or less - I wouldn't hesitate.

Does anyone have any suggestions for finding a photographer at a lower rate that will still result in good quality photos? We went with an inexpensive photog for our wedding, and I ended up really regretting it.

I don't know. It's so personal, no one can tell you what will be right for you. But if I was going to get photos taken, I'd pay the extra for a great photographer over shelling out $200 for a mediocre one.

I took my own with my DSLR and am totally happy with them. And as much as I love the formal photos, the ones that really tug at my heartstrings as my kids grow are the candid shots that show what life was really like. Many are so bad, technically speaking, but I wouldn't trade them for a million pro shots.

Thanks for all the thoughts. You're so lucky if you have a decent portrait studio nearby! I have looked everywhere in the past, and even ended up going to a local sears studio once - never again. It was a total waste of time and money.

There will definitely be tons of photos of this LO - I love taking pictures, and I dabble with Photoshop. I'm just afraid the time will come for NB pics, and I'll be laid up or exhausted or just plain unhappy with the ones I take, and it'll be too late to book a pro to capture the moment.

Aww the photos on her website are very sweet and natural looking the prints are a killer! I know photographers want them professionally printed so that it represents their work well but that seems so unfair. $100 for sitting fee seems reasonable.

If you have your own DSLR I'd highly recommend shooting on your own That $400 can buy you a decent lighting! Most of these newborn photos with seamless background is really a baby resting on a expensive bean bag with a big blanket that's covering the area on a background stand.

Like this shot I did for a client last time it was with Alienbees B800 shot through 48" octabox but I know even a small flash reflected from an umbrella would've gave me a very similar result.